Masters of War
by Godess of revolution
Summary: A different look at the characters in Xmen, makes them a bit more human and a little less perfect. Slightly dark and hopefully not what you expect. Please r
1. Trask

_Come ye masters of war,_

_And you'll build the big guns,_

_And you'll build the planes,_

_And you'll build all the bombs_

As General Trask surveyed the factory he showed a rare smile. Here were his little worker ants, they ran around and did his bidding few knowing what this operation was all about. This he thought was a successful community, and if he had any say in it, the one of the future, too many people knew too much. He thought with scorn about the latest elected President, Mr Kelly. He must have a lot of splinters in his ass from sitting on the fence so much, not wanting to oppose or support the work in this plant. Trask however pushed this thought to the back of his mind; this was not why he was gracing the factory with his presence today.

This factory, his brainchild, to a casual observer looked like any ordinary factory with a particularly militant foreman, however this does little justice to the truth. If you were to look a little more closely you would see numerous signs bearing the legends Corrosive! Handle with Care! or Nuclear Reactor do not open door! With these dangerous and interesting machines scattered around the base of the factory it would be very easy to overlook an unassuming plain black door above which read a sign Restricted: authorised personnel only. If you were to get through this door (which requires four different passwords in different combinations depending on the time of day) you would see another door and quite a few standard army lockers. In order to survive the conditions in the room through the next door you would most definitely need the contents of these lockers. In each one is a full-length protective body suit with a gas mask and an emergency air supply. When you enter sed room you will immediately notice the glass containers, like over sized test tubes, around the wall. In these test tubes are a few unfortunates who, due to nature and bad luck, are very interesting to the other people with you in identical suits. They are mutants and this is a mutant testing facility and the people in the suits are the testers. They have tested most of the well-known anti-mutant measures in this lab, the spray to de-activate their powers and the personal favourite of Trask, the green gunk that traps and freezes them. However, recently they have been developing a virus which will de-evolve mutants and it was this experiment that Trask was here to see.

As Trask walked across the factory floor listening to the nervous babbling of the scientist behind him he imagined what would happen if the virus is successful, will happen when the virus is successful he corrected himself. His sentinels would patrol the whole of the U.S.A. looking for potential mutants and give them this virus, which would probably be quite painful he mused as it would re-write DNA. Oh well the need of many outweighs the need of one, and without doubt the mutant crisis needed dealt with. For the past fifty years the mutant phenomenon has increased exponentially, the numbers growing out of control. The governments and the UN seemed happy to wait and see what happens but he knows what will happen. The freaks will take over if they remain unchecked. People may call him a mad man but they will be thanking him when he saves their governments with his sentinels and his virus.

As the man hurrying along behind him seemed to be able to spout a continual stream of drivel, Trask decided that he would have to ask him some direct questions if he was to ever get to the truth. "Give me your report on the progress of the virus on our test subjects."

"Well sir, we are having difficultly with this virus as the bodies cannot handle the restructuring of the DNA and they are dying off. There are also quite a few unanswered questions such as will this virus affect humans or will the mutants eventually become resistant to the virus, essentially creating a race of super mutants. I'm afraid the dead line that you have given us is completely out of the question we still have much work to do, and I don't know how we are going to check if it is safe for humans."

"Use your imagination. There are plenty of homeless bums that no one will miss, detail a salvage squad to get as many as possible. You should do this as quickly as possible as I still have to give a presentation to world leaders on the newest preventative methods against mutants. I don't care if you have to work 24 hours a day until then, the virus will be ready. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir," he stuttered out and left to go back to the lab.

Now he thought, back to the planning board. The virus would be ready in time, the scientists knew the penalty if it wasn't. However he was running out of test subjects and they weren't that easy to come across. More and more of them where going to schools like Xavier's Institute and they are not easy to break into. However Trask didn't worry, he was a master strategist and eventually the solution would come to him. As he flicked through the files of the mutants it hit him. The morlocks. They were the equivalent of tramps in the mutant community and if a few of them went missing no one would care. In his mind there was always a use for everyone, not however always one that they would like. In this respect it had to be said Trask respected Hitler, he had tried to exterminate physical disabilities, which he thought was a noble cause and the others, well they probably had it coming.

He hummed as he continued flicking through the files but stopped when he came across the name Magneto. His eyes darkened as he thought of all the plans and bases that magneto had destroyed in his relentless quest to find him. Each time he had been one step ahead of Magneto but he knew eventually he would be caught; hence the relentless pace of his scientists in the secret lab in this factory. Ha Magneto, he didn't know who his friends where. He wasted valuable time and energy fighting Xavier and his brats instead of unifying them and having a truly unstoppable team. Oh well his enemy's shortcomings where his advantages, not that Xavier was much of an enemy he didn't take enough risks.

His estimation of Magneto was correct however if he knew what Xavier and Kelly where thinking at that moment he would have realised that he severely under estimated them. But Trask was infallible in his little fortress and as all fools, he had a certain arrogance that made you know eventually he would get his comeuppance. For the prisoners in his test tubes this thought didn't comfort them as they slid off into fevered dreams of torture none of which where more graphic than what had already happened to them. A lucky few dreamt of death and an even luckier one died, not destined to feel the pain of tomorrow. The thing in the cubical next to him closed its eyes, a jealous tear trickled down what once could have been called a cheek, a cheek that once belonged to a young girl who's only worry was she didn't have a boyfriend. She cried silently knowing they had been left here to die by the mutant heroes, Magneto and Xavier.

I thought of this fic when I was listening to Freewheeling by the legend that is Bob Dylan and I thought there was a bit of a parallel. This fic is gonna be a bit dark, its not going to show Xavier in his best light and there is gonna be quite a lot of controversial ideas in this so its probably not what you are expecting. But hey variety is the spice of life. This is gonna be 16 chapters long, each one in a different point of view so I will try and update quickly

So please please please please review! I want to know what you think, if you love it or hate it I don't care I just want feedback!


	2. Kelly

_You'll hide behind walls,_

_You'll hide behind desks,_

I just want you to know I can see through your masks 

The newly elected President Kelly stretched as he looked at his schedule; he had just spent an uninterrupted night of sleep in his presidential suite. He turned round in his chair until he was looking out of his office window. It was a strange feeling, knowing that he was elected by the largest margin of votes in 50 years. He was now officially the most powerful man in the world, with thousands of nuclear warheads at his disposal, the biggest army in the world and no one to oppose him. When you think about it he could literally crush any country he wanted, except possibly China, there were to many of those little slitty-eyed bastards.

He laughed as he remembered the applause after an election speech he had made on TV. The journalists raved he was the president of the future, hundreds of foreign governments called to offer their support to such a liberal and tolerant senator. Fools all of them. Kelly thought he should have won an Oscar for that performance, the opposition called it 'the greatest political u turn in history' but no one wanted to know. The truth of the matter was he hadn't made a u turn; in fact his opinions hadn't changed since he was the principle at Bayville High. He still hated mutants and no one knows, except of course for the Friends of Humanity. Ah his own private army, you could get so much more done with a vigilante group that with the CIA or FBI, after all Trask had one as does Magneto and Xavier has one as well, he just doesn't want to admit it publicly.

Professor Charles Xavier was a real snake in the grass and President Kelly admired this. On the surface Magneto and Trask are much more dangerous but they are predictable, they have one-track minds and they also think they are untouchable. What they haven't learned yet, thought Kelly, is that one volunteer soldier is better than ten conscripted ones. Magneto bullies, blackmails and forces young powerful mutants onto his team but they don't believe in the cause and so, when push comes to shove they will save their own neck instead of their glorious leader's. Trask had much the same ideas, in fact he was so like Magneto it was amusing and both of them are small time players. Kelly was sure that they both regarded Xavier and him with contempt, but the proof was in the pudding. Magneto had 5 members on his main team and 4 renegades that he ignored, whereas Xavier had in total 17 with that number rapidly increasing each month. The comparison between Trask's army and FOH was much the same. The time for extremists was over, the people respected leaders who would talk to each other instead of blowing each other up.

As he thought more on how he could come out on top of this war, Kelly immediately ruled out Magneto and Trask. I'll let them do my dirty work he thought, let them destroy each other and then when they are weakened they will be easy to eliminate. Xavier was more of a challenge, he was a popular public figure to mutants and humans alike and therefore a much more dangerous opponent. Hidden beneath the calm exterior there was a master strategist, one who wasn't afraid to make sacrifices for the cause. Take for example the mutant prisoners in Trask's 'Top Secret' factory, he could rescue them without much difficulty but he doesn't want to reveal the strength of his team yet. Naturally his precious Xmen didn't have a clue about the real Charles Xavier, which says a lot about their intelligence he thought.

Not that the members of his own little army are much better, they all believe that mutants are like Magneto and would kill them and their families without a second thought. Their ignorance was his power over them, or rather cultivated ignorance. Every other advert or program on the TV concerns mutants, and more than one negative one was funded by the government. Naturally the rest of his party had no idea and neither did the masses of the USA except for a select few and naturally his enemies.

That reminded him, he had to phone Jones about the next senior associates meeting and try to think of a new plan to dishonour the name of Charles Xavier. The last meeting hadn't come up with any successful ideas as anyone who has any unpleasant information about Xavier curiously forgets it. As he picks up the phone and dials a number he allows himself to wonder about a world without mutants. As he thought about those pleasant images he hummed the American national anthem to himself. He was jolted out of his daydream but a harsh voice on the other end of the phone barking, "What is it?"

"Now, now Mr Jones that is no way to speak to your newly elected president? I hope it's not too much of an inconvenience for you to schedule a meeting of the senior associates and please don't approach General Hastings with that tone of voice as he is already tetchy enough about the lack of progress being made."

"Of course President Kelly, I am sorry for the curtness but we have a situation. One of the junior staff members has overheard that Trask plans to experiment on humans and he is demanding to know what we are going to do about it."

"Has he told anyone else?"

"No sir, we managed to contain him in the compound, we have already aroused suspicion of his loyalties in the other members so that he can be disposed of without any unnecessary questions. However we have reason to suspect that he has already discussed this with his wife and I need your authority on what we should do with her and her daughter."

"Hmmm, we'll have to cover this up well. Tell me was this man well known in our ranks?"

"No sir. He didn't get much chance to socialise with the other members because he has two jobs to provide for his family. I believe that his child has some learning difficulties that require special and costly treatment."

"Well Jones, I'm sorry to say that you will have the sad task of informing his wife that he was grievously injured in a mutant attack, then you shall escort her and her child to a limousine to take them to the hospital. Naturally she will never reach this destination. In fact, why don't you drop in them as a present to Mr Trask, I'm sure he will appreciate it. With this special treatment that the daughter was receiving it wont be hard to convince people they where muties."

"Consider it done sir"

I would like to assure you all that I am not a racist and the comments in no way reflect my personal views.

I would also like to thank LyraFan for reviewing my last chapter, I hope to return the favour when I manage to get on the net for more than five minutes.

Again I would appreciate it if you would take time off from your busy and exiting lives to review this FF. I have already started the next chapter so there wont be such a large gap between chapters (hopefully!)


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